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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Economy Thread aka Where's my money, bitch?!

Economy Thread aka Where's my money, bitch?!
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The Final Dakar
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Jul 16, 2018, 12:08 AM
 
Place for me to post my gripes about how ****ed up income distribution is in this country.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...10-story.html#
In its latest report on wages, released Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that earnings for all employees were unchanged in June from June 2017. Real average hourly wages increased 0.1% in June from May, because half of a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings was eaten up by a 0.1% increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers actually decreased by 0.2% over the past year, the BLS said.

The average work week increased by 0.3% over the past year, resulting in a 0.2% increase in real average weekly earnings over the past year, and no change in the figure for production and nonsupervisory workers.
The economy is at near full employment and we're actually making less money.

The underlying cause of the “labor shortage” is hiding in plain sight. It’s the long-term trend of funneling the gains from labor productivity not to the workforce, but to shareholders. As with any addiction, this process produces short-term euphoria, reflected in share prices, but long-term pathology, reflected in income inequality, poverty and social unrest.

But it’s been going on so long that the addicts, that is, corporate CEOs and their mouthpieces, have forgotten how to respond. The CNBC piece observed, as though this is a new discovery, that “employers are going to have to start doing more to entice workers, likely through pay raises, training and other incentives.” The harvest will be lower corporate earnings, Goldman Sachs has warned.
The narrow attitude that wage growth is bad for business is exemplified by the pummeling that American Airlines suffered from Wall Street a year ago, when it announced healthy wage increases for pilots and flight attendants, even before their union contracts expired. As we reported at the time, the airline's shares lost more than 8% in value over the ensuing two trading sessions, a loss of about $1.9 billion in market value in 48 hours.
As a share of gross domestic income, corporate profits have nearly doubled, to 6.4% in 2016 from 3.3% in 1990, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Meanwhile, the labor share, measured as wages and salaries paid to individuals, has been on a schneid, falling to 42.2% in 2013 from 46.2% in 1991. The labor share has since crept up to 43% as of 2016, but it’s still well below its postwar peak of 51.5%, reached in 1970.

How about graphs?


Nice to see the tax cut goosed wage grow... err, that's awkward.



https://twitter.com/AlecMacGillis/st...64086520057856
"In 2000, when jobless rate last fell <4%, corporations pulled in 8.3% of nation’s income in form of profits; wages & salaries accounted for 66%.

Now, jobless rate is again <4%. But corporate profits account for 13.2% of nation’s income. Workers’ compensation has fallen to 62%."
Corporations hoarding more money.
If workers’ share had not shrunk, they would have had an additional $532 billion, or about $3,400 each
     
andi*pandi
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Jul 16, 2018, 10:50 AM
 
Our annual merit increase changed from 3% to 2.5%.
     
Thorzdad
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Jul 16, 2018, 12:07 PM
 
The republican running for senate here is hyping the tax cut like crazy, claiming it's created tons of jobs and put thousands of dollars into worker's pockets. His ads attack our current (democratic) senator for voting against the cuts. Apparently, it's working. He's ahead in the polls.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jul 16, 2018, 03:54 PM
 
Florida? NJ?
     
Doc HM
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Jul 16, 2018, 05:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
The republican running for senate here is hyping the tax cut like crazy, claiming it's created tons of jobs and put thousands of dollars into worker's pockets. His ads attack our current (democratic) senator for voting against the cuts. Apparently, it's working. He's ahead in the polls.
It's a neat trick. Make people actually poorer and yourself immeasurably richer, then tell the people they are infact getting better off, AND THEY BELIEVE YOU,

Works over here too. People on low wage, zero hours contracts happily voting for austerity because you know, you can't trust Labour with the economy.
This space for Hire! Reasonable rates. Reach an audience of literally dozens!
     
reader50
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Jul 16, 2018, 06:17 PM
 
Uninformed voters. Gotta love em. You get more by limiting free public school to 12th grade, then regularly attacking the free press.
     
Thorzdad
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Jul 16, 2018, 06:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Florida? NJ?
Indiana
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 11, 2018, 03:22 PM
 


Is this misrepresenting things? (Since I think trickle-down is a scam, it feeds into my bias)

Edit: Noticed the profit line isn't as wide as the wages one
     
Thorzdad
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Aug 12, 2018, 11:14 AM
 
I don't think it's misrepresenting the idea at all. Corporate profits have indeed been quickly growing as wages have remained stagnant. One might be able to quibble with the actual numbers, but the essence is true. The tax cut was designed to pretty much achieve the result you see on the graph.

There was a lot of lip-service paid to how employers are going to raise wages and hire more people, and workers are going to see a windfall of extra cash in their paychecks from lower taxes, but the true heart of the deal was to increase corporate profits and enrich the already rich. That workers might see a few dollars more in their pay was more-or-less smoke and mirrors, as evidenced by the tax cuts for anyone who isn't wealthy being designed to gradually ramp-down and disappear after a couple of years. That little trick, coincidentally, gives Republican candidates a tool with which to campaign against their Democratic opponents in the fall, to support making those lower-class tax cuts permanent.

(As for the weight of the lines on the graph...That appears to be merely an optical effect, owing to the way those two colors blend with a black background, and that the blue line runs so closely to the white graph line.)
     
reader50
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Aug 12, 2018, 03:13 PM
 
@Thorz, I don't think he meant the marker width. The red line ends at 2018 Q1, while the blue continues to 2018 Q2, making them cover different lengths of time. Perhaps the data is incomplete, profit margins not reported for Q2 yet.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 2, 2018, 05:01 PM
 
Wages went up at their fastest pace since 2009. Hopefully it keeps up.
     
andi*pandi
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Nov 3, 2018, 03:09 PM
 
Gas is pushing $3.40/gal around here.
     
Atheist
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Nov 5, 2018, 11:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
Gas is pushing $3.40/gal around here.
I'm always surprised at how varied gas prices are. I just paid $2.40/gal yesterday in NoVa.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 5, 2018, 01:01 PM
 
...and a little shy of $3 here in PA
     
Thorzdad
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Nov 5, 2018, 05:35 PM
 
Was $2.59 here Saturday. Haven’t looked since then. The week before, it was almost $3.00.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Nov 5, 2018, 06:19 PM
 
Pretty sure its well over $6 here.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
   
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